


The Tower of Minas Morgul

by ATMachine (orphan_account)



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Aragorn/Eowyn/Faramir is totally a thing, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, implied polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 07:04:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10962174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ATMachine
Summary: The Lord of Minas Morgul bids the King of Gondor welcome.





	The Tower of Minas Morgul

 

 

**Disclaimers:** The universe (and the headcanon) are JRR Tolkien’s. I’m just the amanuensis.

 

"‘Tales out of the South,’ Gollum went on again, ‘about the tall Men with the shining eyes, and their houses like hills of stone, and the silver crown of their King and his White Tree: wonderful tales. They built very tall towers, and one they raised was silver-white, and in it there was a stone like the Moon, and round it were great white walls. O yes, there were many tales about the Tower of the Moon.’"  
\-- _The Lord of the Rings_ , Book IV, Chapter 3, "The Black Gate is Closed"

 

In the topmost tower of Minas Morgul, the monster quivered in its death agonies upon the rough stone floor, and the maiden in rags, released from her chains, ran to her deliverer.

The seeming of her shape, the image that was rescued from the plains of Osgiliath and breathed its last in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith, had not fooled him, for he was wise and long-sighted; and on an Eagle of Gwaihir’s host, they had flown high overland to the last stronghold of Sauron the Necromancer; to rescue his beloved, spirited away in the hour of her triumph over the Nazgûl Lord.

She threw herself into his arms with gladness, and spoke with her face still pressed to his bosom:

“O Aragorn, Aragorn! My beloved! My joy!”

He held her in his arms, rough and sinewed with long years of swordplay; and he let his dark beard rest against the shining ripples of her hair. “Yes, I am here; and it is well I slew this foul creature without mischance coming upon us. For even with the Ring destroyed and the Dark Tower broken, the wiles of the Enemy are great, and perchance his earthly body is not yet overthrown utterly.”

She raised her head to look at him, this tall tanned Ranger with the kingly light in his eyes. “Beloved, no reward is great enough to honor thee for delivering me from the evils intended by my jailor. Let us haste back to Minas Tirith, that we may be wedded and lie together, for I would fain no longer be a maid.”

Then Aragorn looked her in the eye; and his suspicions were confirmed.

“Thou mayest yet be a maid; but if so, thou art not Eowyn. Else wouldst thou know how she confessed to me, in the hold of Dunharrow, of the dark deeds of Gríma the Wormtongue, and the shame and anger she felt thereof.”

Her tender, tearful face gave way to a hideous snarl; and then it shifted, so that it was no longer the face of Eowyn of Rohan. It was the visage of another woman, older far and crueler, ravaged by time and hatred until all but a shadow of her ancient beauty had fled from her countenance.

It was the face of Sauron. Her true face.

Sauron, Mairon, Gorthaur, Thû: few indeed were they privileged enough to learn Sauron’s true name and carry the secret with them. For Sauron the Necromancer was of old Thuringwethil, the Woman of Secret Shadows, the greatest and proudest of the Maiar who served Aulë in Valinor in the days of the Trees. But Aulë was proud and stubborn, and misliked women, and he would not deign to teach the arts of smithcraft to a female. Thus was born the need for her deception; and later, when as Morgoth’s consort it proved so useful in intimidating her foes, she had perpetuated it down years uncounted.

Lúthien had known Sauron’s true nature in Beleriand, and Galadriel in her turn; but where were they now? Beleriand was sunk beneath the Western Seas, and Lothlorien was a blazing ruin, its shining flets and golden mallorns laid waste by Orcs while the armies of Elvendom fought at Osgiliath.

“So, Elessar, you guess who I am then? So much more a scholar than I might have expected from a mere Man; but it shall avail you naught. Behold!”

And Sauron gestured to a dark corner of the chamber, which had lain in shadow; and where nothingness had been, there was revealed a woman hanging in chains, naked and bleeding.

Her hair was gone, singed off by red-hot blades, whose heat had also served to blind her eyes, glassed over with milk-film; her back was in ribbons from the scourges of a whip, and the dirt and filth on her legs spoke of the nameless deeds the Orcs had inflicted on her. Upon her forehead was carved in the ancient Cirth runes _pyg_ , the Old Quenya word for whore.

No phantom this, no deception of wicked glamour, but the true Eowyn, born to Theoden’s sister in the timbered halls of Meduseld. She said nothing, but moaned softly in pain and half-consciousness.

At the sight Aragorn shivered for a moment, and Sauron saw it, and she smiled. But swiftly he composed himself again, and turned back to face the Lord of Minas Morgul.

“See, O King! Look at your beloved lady, a whore fit to lie with the very dogs of her kennels. I have trained her well. One Wormtongue might have been enough to take her maidenhead; but thirty Orcs have been with her each night since she came here, and each night she gives pleasure to them all.”

“You were indeed foolish to do this thing,” said the King of Gondor. “For in your pride you have bidden me also come hither to your inner domain, and here today you shall die.”

“I die? I, the Lord of Barad-Dur, the Woman of Shadows, whose name has been feared for six thousand years upon the Middle-earth, and in Valinor over Sea for eons before that? If you want to kill me, O King, you shall truly have your work cut out for you.”

“That may be so; but your last hour has come, nonetheless.” And Aragorn drew Andúril from its scabbard.

She laughed then. This upstart King, this Elfstone, knew her secret as had Lúthien of old; and he was armed with the blade of Isildur, and mighty enough that he could kill her with it if he chose.

But he was only one man. And she had slain thousands of men. Isildur, Ëarnur, Arvedui; these all had perished, by sword or arrow, by weather-working or by treachery. The thought amused her. No, this one would not kill her, King though he might be. The poor benighted fool had come alone, and he would die alone.

But she was wrong. Aragorn was not alone. Faramir too had been borne upon the Eagle’s back, and waited now upon the parapet outside the tower door.

And hanging from chains in the chamber’s far corner, almost forgotten in the pride and hubris of her captor, was Eowyn of Rohan.

Thinking.

Listening.

Waiting.


End file.
